Trump’s New Foreign Broadcasting CEO Fires News Chiefs, Raising Fears Of Meddling

Enlarge this image

The Voice of America building, shown on Monday, in Washington, D.C.

hide caption

toggle caption

Andrew Harnik/AP

Media
Top Executives At VOA Resign As Trump Ally Prepares To Take Over

Trump had sought to place Pack in the position for two years, complaining about the Senate’s slow pace in confirming him to the job. This spring, lawmakers learned Pack was under investigation by the Washington, D.C., attorney general’s office over concerns he had improperly transferred millions of dollars from his not-for-profit outfit to his for-profit production company. That investigation has not yet been resolved.

Pack’s bold moves took people who work at the agency by surprise. A memo obtained by NPR that was sent out by Pack’s new chief of staff, Emily Newman, said that officials could take no actions and make no external communications without approval from above.

Several staffers, who spoke to NPR on condition they not be named, said that effectively shut down the agency.

A new direction?

Pack is a filmmaker whose documentaries have appeared on PBS. President George W. Bush appointed him to the National Council on the Humanities and he has held senior positions at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Pack is a past president of the conservative Claremont Institute and has worked on projects with former Trump political strategist Stephen Bannon, the former executive chairman of the Breitbart News Network.

In an internal memo sent Wednesday evening that was reviewed by NPR, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty director Jamie Fly conveyed his surprise.

«It is with great sadness that I leave all of you at RFE/RL,» wrote Fly, who moved with his family to Prague only last summer for the job. «I had hoped to work with you much longer and to make progress on the initiatives that we’ve begun.»

The fired head of Middle East Broadcasting Networks, Alberto Miguel Fernandez, wrote in a tweet Wednesday night that he regretted his departure was so «precipitous,» and added, «Wish the incoming people at @USAGMgov well. I hope they know what they are doing.»

Politics
White House Attacks Voice Of America Over China Coronavirus Coverage

Libby Liu, a past president of Radio Free Asia, had given notice that she would step down in July as head of the agency’s Open Technology Fund, intended to promote Internet access around the world. Pack made her departure immediate.

The director and deputy director of Voice of America, Amanda Bennett and Sandy Sugawara, resigned over the weekend, saying Pack deserved to have his appointees leading the news service. Bennett’s parting statement noted Pack’s promise to uphold the journalistic independence of the news service and the firewall that exists to protect it from political interference.

Their resignations nonetheless followed fast on the heels of the disclosure that another government agency sought to shut her journalists out.

Earlier this week, documents obtained by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University showed that the Centers for Disease Control had issued a ban on responding to questions from former Fox News host Greta Van Susteren, now hosting a show for VOA, or anyone else with the government-backed news service. The CDC cited a White House memo for its policy — a remarkable instance of one government agency shutting out another’s requests for public information.

Voice of America has increasingly been a target of Trump and his administration. In 2018, Bannon told the Los Angeles Times, «VOA is a rotten fish from top to bottom.» He added, «It’s now totally controlled by the deep-state apparatus.»

Instead, the White House claimed in a formal statement in April that VOA had «amplified Beijing’s propaganda» by running an Associated Press article about COVID-19 policies in China.

Politics
Voice Of America Vows Independence, As Trump Calls For ‘Worldwide Network’

VOA has aired highly critical reports from China, particularly regarding the government’s ongoing persecution of Uighurs and other Muslims in the northwest of China.

Pack’s immediate predecessor as permanent CEO of the broadcasting agency, John Lansing, now CEO of NPR, expressed concern in an interview last night.

«If VOA is converted to a mouthpiece for an American president’s agenda then we will be giving aid and comfort to authoritarians around the world,» Lansing said, «and that will ultimately make American citizens less safe and will diminish America’s standing around the world.»

An agency born in conflict

The service, created during World War II to provide reliable news and information about the war to people in countries under German occupation, has served as a form of «soft diplomacy.» It is intended to project American values abroad through a reliable news service in multiple languages as an example of the nation’s commitment to political pluralism and freedom of the press.

Over the decades, the U.S. government’s international broadcasters have at times been political footballs, pushed this way or that to emphasize certain regions or policy imperatives by various administrations.

Prominent Democrats, including House Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Eliot Engel of New York, had warned Pack against politicizing the agency. The agency’s old bipartisan board issued federal rules on June 11 stating with more specificity the firewall and journalistic standards intended to protect the news services’ reports. It now stands as federal policy.

The Two-Way
Russia Slaps Restrictions On ‘Voice Of America’ And ‘Radio Free Europe’

That board, however, was dissolved as Pack took over as CEO.

Part of the internal concern over Pack stems from his collaboration with Bannon on two documentary projects and his work in ideological forums such as the Claremont Institute.

In his memo to staffers Wednesday morning, Pack committed himself to respecting VOA’s charter and the mission of the other broadcasters. He said he also believed they serve as a bulwark against misinformation by foreign actors. (China and Russia are internally seen as the two leading offenders.) And Pack invoked President Abraham Lincoln, writing, «We need to counter lies with the truth. We need to make clear to the world the ideals that inspire America.»

Pack also wrote he intended «to examine some of the problems that have surfaced in the media in recent years. I have no preconceptions – I simply intend to make sure there are no issues getting in the way of your ability to report the news.»

Pack did not respond to requests for an interview.

The people swept out by Pack include those who have received praise for helping their networks fight misinformation from China and Russia with factual reporting. And they include officials appointed during the Trump presidency.

Jamie Fry, until Wednesday the chief of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, had been a top aide to Republican Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, though he had been critical of Trump during the 2016 campaign. Fernandez had served as a State Department official under President George W. Bush as well as an ambassador under President Obama.

Other steps were taken in anticipation of Pack’s arrival.

A photograph of Lansing, Pack’s predecessor, adorned a wall in a hallway at the agency’s headquarters, along with a quote taken from his farewell address there: «A set of unimpeachable facts, and the existence of a baseline of truth is the foundation that undergirds our democracy, its institutions, and the health, safety and security of all American citizens.

«Since our country’s founding, journalists and journalism have stood watch over private and public officials in power to hold them accountable to what is factual and what is true.»

The quote was painted over last weekend, the photograph removed.

Disclosure: This story was reported by NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik and edited by NPR’s Mark Katkov. Due to Lansing’s prior role at USAGM, no senior news executive or corporate executive at NPR reviewed this story before it was published.